Coffee Good, Morning Bad

Flickr dicker

I was mulling over photo licenses a few minutes ago. Currently my photos on flickr are  'all rights reserved' as default. This is because I often have photos of Toby or other small children that I don't want to allow rights to (and I know this doesn't stop anyone downloading them and using them but it means should they do so and get caught they can make no argument that they had the right in law). However, a good percentage of my photos would be fine under CC license.

The only way I could alter this (apart from each image individually) would be by changing them all as a batch to a default other license, and then searching for all photos tagged with toby (or whatever) and changing those back, which is something of a faff. It occured to me it would be great if you could override your default license if you used a tag. Not just be able to tag 'CC' or whatever but if my photos were a CC license unless I used the tag 'tobyab' or 'toby' in which case they would be 'all rights reserved'.

Does that make sense?

Visiting unchartered territory in the supermarket

Today I'm doing something I have never done before. I'm using an eating plan. This isn't a diet as such, as I have no major intention to lose weight, but a commitment to actually eating healthily. Since having Toby I have become incredibly lax about my own diet and health. The more hours I put into his wellbeing and appetite the less that seems to have gone into mine. For Paul it is much more of a slow and steady weightloss diet but I think it's nice that we can do this together and support each other.

Besides, I think we will each need to be a tower of strength for the other. The first clue was when Paul was at Sainsburys for over 2 hours trying to find the hitherto unknown articles - beanfeast, Quorn chicken strips, lower fat salad dressing - but now I've looked at this week's menu plan and it has at least 3 servings of houmous and all the cereal seems to include dried fruit. Bleurgh!

The best color in the whole world, is the one that looks good, on you!

“The best color in the whole world, is the one that looks good, on you!”

Coco Chanel

I love colour. Adore it. Very rarely wear black. Wear brightly colour stripes. Clash often with myself. Love pastels in spring. Oranges, purples, burgundy and brown in autumn. Bright colours in the summer. Deep, rich colours and contrast in winter. Looking at my range of Making Memories paint colours fills me up. I think my favourite colour is red. At least for today.

Look back and smile on perils past.

Look back and smile on perils past.

Sir Walter Scott 

Week one of 2008 is over, how do you feel ? Capture with a photo.

Does this look positive? I'm practicing my Happy Face. I hope to use it lots in 2008. I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. I had a wobble mid-week (thanks hormones) but i think I'm back to feeling I might just be able to do some good things this year.

Creative muscle flexing

Create, create, create. Creation of stuff is pretty core to keeping me happy. It keeps me from sinking into a mire of depression. It exercises my brain. It teaches me patience and self-control.
So what am I creating right now and, hopefully, in the near future?

I am creating a series of inspiration mosaics on Flickr. Flickr is so full of gorgeous, inspiring images. And I don't use those words lightly. Not much actually inspires me - although I'm working on cracking open that cynical old heart of mine - and I have to really like something to attach the word gorgeous to it.

I'm borrowing an idea from AliE and creating a series of 12 mini books with photos and events from the year in them. Ali really is someone I find inspiring.

I'm creating a new office/scrap space for me, with the help of Big Picture Scrapbooking's Get Organized and Be Inspired class (and Wendy Smedley and her co-author Aby Garvey)

I'm creating at work too. I've just finished up some copy for Edenbee which should launch pretty soon (I wrote the copy for the goals in the site) and now I'm doing some work with uber-cool web gurus Clearleft.

I'm not doing a lot of scrapbooking right now, which is sad. But I do want to do Elsie Flannigan's 52 challenges this year and go back to working on my Library of Memories class work. I also have last year's A Year To Remember stuff saved and I'm hoping that an objective look through it all will prove it was worth the money I paid for it because last year it was just too much to keep track of.

I also want to create some home decor pieces after i've got to the bottom of all the boxes here.

Eleventh night

January 5th (that's today, folks) is my Mum's birthday. That for me marks the end of the celebrations proper. The last chocolates must be eaten, the nibbles polished off and the decorations up in the loft for another year. I'm at my parents' place now to celebrate Mum's birthday with family tomorrow and, bar six mince pies and a handful of mini chocolates, Christmas has left the building.

I'm still pondering on a less-than-perfect Christmas (is Christmas ever perfect, or is it just every other bygone Christmasses that are perfect?) and what to do next year. Maybe I'll journal some ideas while it's all fairly fresh in my mind. After all, it's only 350 days before it comes round again.

Independence Day

I always figured I'd know when my baby was no longer a baby. A couple of days ago he turned 18 months old which is the time most baby books say 'no longer our territory, you're on your own now soldier!'. He celebrated by being pretty stroppy, eating nothing but two yoghurts and catching us all on the hop by sleeping through for the first time in yonks. Standard small toddler fare.

But then. But then. It took me noodling about with new desktop pictures to come across this one again. Taken in early November, it actually made me catch my breath. Walking on reins?  Wearing a Bob the Builder hat selected by small self?  Heading towards the road in a different direction from Mummy?  This is toddler stuff all right.

I have dreadful suspicions I might become one of those awful women who ruffle the hair of their 33 year old son, who is married with 2 kids, and say 'But he's still my baby!'. If anyone catches me doing that, please show me this picture again and remind me he grew out of babyhood and into his own little person a long time ago.